Surf's Up

Movie: Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer

Somehow they managed to make the Silver Surfer un-cool.

I told Alex before i went into the show that if i kept my expectations of the film low i would probably enjoy it more. Boy, was i wrong. I think i would enjoy the film much more (like Alex) if i didn't know a thing about the Silver Surfer. As they say, ignorance is bliss (and the subtext 'Rise of the Silver Surfer' is so misleading; watch the show and you'll understand why). I just wish they didn't make him so weak, or dependent on his cosmic surfboard.

Of course everything (wrong) about the Silver Surfer pales in comparison to the depiction of Galactus, who looks like a cosmic dust cloud pillar thingie... Galactus, by the way, looks like this:

Is it too much to ask to see a few shots of a proper Galactus?

With the CGI of Mr Fantastic's stretchy hands already looking so bad, i wonder why they couldn't just make Galactus in the same way. I think a giant, CGI planet-devouring super-duper villain would look more menacing than a cloud of dust (also in CG).

Last but not least, as in part 1, Dr Doom did not make for a very interesting villain. Despite the action which was significantly more than the first movie, i still found myself bored throughout all 92 mins (and i was thinking before the show that 92 mins was too short for a movie). To me, this just confirms that Marvel are already incapable of releasing good superhero movies. Them ruining Spiderman 3 was already an omen. I think the last Superhero flick i actually enjoyed was Batman, but that was DC, not Marvel. Rating: Low 6/10
-----------

Some Liar Game news:

"Fuji TV's "LIAR GAME" drama series is getting an extended final episode. On June 23, instead of running in its regular 11:10-11:55 time slot, the program will air from 9:00 to 11:55.

This is a first for a drama series. There have been many cases where a final episode is extended (generally by 15 minutes) or a series gets a later special episode, but no serialized drama has ever had a finale extended to 3 hours.

"LIAR GAME" has attracted decent ratings and has become very popular among young viewers. In an Oricon survey early in the season, it had the second-highest viewer satisfaction rating behind "Kaette Kita Jikou Keisatsu."

Actor Kinya Kitaoji will make a guest appearance in the final episode as Hasegawa, the head of the "game."
- From http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-1117

The viewership for Liar Game may not be that high but i'm glad to hear that those smart enough to watch it (11pm on Saturdays) are enjoying the show. Since the comic is ongoing i hope this means a 2nd season (more Erika/Nao!) as well. And thanks to this news i picked up Jikou Keisatsu to watch as well. I'll probably write a short bit about it when i'm done watching the first season.

Pretty in Pink

For the 4th consecutive time, i got the same flavor drinking Anything. If i could i would shake my own hand. That makes it a 1/2196 chance that i got the same flavor 4 times in a row, out of a possible 6 different flavor. I like those odds. This higher those odds go, the more confident i will be that i can somehow by chance meet Erika Toda in Japan.

I collected my pink IC on Friday morning! Every cockster i showed on the way out of camp pretended to try to snap my card into 2. What an original prank. Oh well, that's the end of one phase of my life. Went bowling at CDANs with Alex straight after that. What a good feeling it was to leave my IC as the deposit. I bowled some OK scores by my standard but what irks me is the difference between my High and Low score (194/196). That's just terrible inconsistency. And i somehow managed to ruin a fantastic chance to hit 200+ in my 194 game. Grr..

Added some statistics on my sidebar to track my bowling averages and scores. Target: To push my average over 140.
-----------

Drama: Liar Game Episode 8

The big annoucement at the end of Episode 8 is that the final episode of Liar Game will be a 3 hour special! Considering that 1 episode is 30 odd minutes, that equates to a 6-episode finale.
Anyway this episode ends with the end of the Resurrection Round and the immediate commencement of the Third (and what i believe to be the final) round of the LGT. Can't wait to see how this ends.

Found this pics of a gameshow with Matsuda Shota and Erika Toda (and the other cast of Liar Game) appearing in it. Had to share this cause Erika looks too cute (click to see the bigger version):

TOW No Pictures

If it's not one thing it's the other: been wanting to update for the past few days but some stupid script error on Blogspot has prevented me from doing so. Even downloading Firefox failed to help. So until something on someone's end (and if you believe me it's Blogspot's fault!) gets fixed i'll be stuck posting just unformatted text, since i can't even hit the edit HTML button.
-----------

After much uneventfulness, i managed to gather nearly all of the signatures for my ORD clearance form. What a letdown for my final 'quest'. I actually thought (hoped actually) that filling up the form would be harder than this. Sort of a final hurdle before they release me. As it stands now, the final hurdle is covering the Navy Open House 2007. I don't wish to put my waning medical skills to the test.

Went bowling with Nigel and Melvin (2 fellow ORDers) today after my dental FFI at TMC. I managed a pretty respectable (to me) average of 129.6 over 5 games (TP: 648, L113H153). Nigel is a pretty good bowler once he finds his spot! He had a low of 92 and high of 182 but lost in total pinfalls to yours truly. He managed to coax me into buying a bowling ball after our next payday. Saw a nice pink ball for a straight bowler like me for $125 at the CSC shop. I don't swing 'that' way but i think pink really stands out from the usual black balls. Anyway, we'll have a lot of free time on weekdays to go bowling once June comes around.
-----------

True to self, i have nearly already overspent my entire next month's NS allowance. Besides some bowling, some pigging out (Cafe Cartel w/ Alex on Saturday, Swensen's w/ Nigel/Melvin today) and some taxis here and there, i also bought 5 X360 games this month (Dead Rising, N3, Spiderman 3, Test Drive Unlimited and Splinter Cell Double Agent) not to mention some DVDs (Nada Sou-Sou, Spiderman 2, Little Britain and Spring Snow).

And to top it off, Guitar Hero 2 is finally confirmed to be released on May 14th (Monday). The odds of me tightening my purse-strings looks to be pretty slim till at least after this purchase. It's not just PS2 Guitar Hero 2+new songs+HD graphics, MOST importantly, it's Guitar Hero 2+new songs+HD graphics+1000 shiny ACHIEVEMENT POINTS! Oh yah, i added my XBL gamercard underneath my profile.
-----------

I thought the day would never come again: my BT download list is finally empty! And vice-versa, my 550GB HDD is nearly full! I usually take my time to re-encode and burn my stuff but this time round there's too much new stuff so i'm going to have to practice watch and delete for those 'average' dramas. Even Ishihara Satomi wasn't a big enough pull to stop me from deleting Nurse Aoi off. Gonna finish the last 2 episodes of Nodame Cantabile

One last side note for this update: Liar Game 4 is out! Gonna watch it tonight!

Time Goes By..

Did my 2nd last duty yesterday! 1 more last Sunday duty before i lose another chunk of my NS obligations (my medical knowledge/ skills were the first to go). Was fussing over what to pack for duty (in terms of entertainment) and in the end didn't bring anything extra. Dennis introduced me to this fun flash game site GameGecko and that's how i blew my afternoon away.

Ended up watching Miss Singapore Universe 2007, a program that i would never normally watch while at home. But it turned out to be quite entertaining. Some of the contestants were downright...'unpleasant'. Call me biased against local girls (i don't think i am but the beautiful ones are few and far between) but hey, i call it as i see it. I was looking forward to the question and answer round because i thought there would be some funny stuff but suprisingly the girls were quite well prepared. Ok, some of the answers were crappy (and so were majority of the questions) but at least there was nothing cringe-worthy.

In the end it was down to Joey Feng (Kang Wei's pick) and Jessica Tan and the latter won. Personally i though Joey looked sweeter but as Fidelis expertly pointed out, the girl with the bigger boobs always win. And with half the contestants having smaller cup size than Kang Wei (or Dennis), it was not that hard to guess the winner based on his theory.

Well since it's over and done with i'm gonna refrain from further badmouthing our Miss Universe 2007 representative but i sincerely hope she does something about her hairstyle because it looked awful. Good luck (you'll need it) carrying the Singapore flag to Miss Universe 2007!

(Dis)Honorary Awards:

Most Forced(fake) Smile: Cadenze Koh (MSU03): think she will have trouble returning to her normal expression after forcing that smile for the entire show
'Auntie' Award: Judy Lee (MSU18): it's a wonder she passed through the age checks prior to the compy (she pulled out of the finals due to work commitments...right..)
Ah Lian Award: Carol Chin (MSU05): she just has the typical Ah Lian look
Best Answer Award: Peggy Chang (MSU04): she had a perfect (ie exactly what i would have said) answer for the 2nd question round
Worst Figure Award: Angelina Tay (MSU15): she has broader shoulder than me! Brr! OR Christabel Campbell (MSU01): she's so tall that it's a little freakish, even Adrian Pang felt intimidated
Sweet Heart Award: Joey Feng (MSU09): Kang Wei has good taste, pity she didn't win

-----------
Drama: Liar Game (Episode 2)

Just as last week, the raw + subs for the latest episode of Liar Game is already out! Episode 2 continues with more of Nao's foolishness and concludes Round 1 of the Liar Game.

Despite winning the first round, Nao gives up her share (50million yen) to Mr Fujisawa (her opponent) to help him with his debt. Shin'chi gives back his share as well, claiming that the deal was for him to get half of Nao's prize money (now 0 yen). Nao starts thinking that he's not such a bad guy after all and wonders why he became a swindler.

Nao invites Shin'ichi to her house to cook for him as a thank you gesture but they find another video tape inviting Nao to the 2nd round of Liar Game. Shin'ichi tells her to just ignore it and to call him if there's any problems. Next day, Nao meets a policeman who offers to accompany her to the meeting place of the 2nd round to formally tell them she wants no further part in the game. She calls Shin'ichi to thank him again and says she doesn't need his help this time.

Turns out she gets tricked again as the policeman is working for the Liar Game people and he only brings her there so that she will participate in Round 2. There's 22 people involved and at the last minute before the door closes, Shin'ichi walks in and declares he will take part as well. The 100 million yen this time is in the form of a diamond attached to the nametag of the players. Since there's 22 players, the maximum amount of money the winner stands to win is 2.1billion yen. The episode ends just as 'Jigsaw' is about to announce the rules of the game (something to do with Minority Voting) and with Nao looking worried (as usual).

-----------

Guilty by Association

Finished watching 2 seasons (9+11eps) of Hana Yori Dango today! In case the title sounds vaguely familiar, it's the Japanese version of Taiwan series Meteor Garden (starring F4), which was in turn based off the manga series. Liked the comic when i read i back in poly but never watched Meteor Garden because i hated F4 back then. Was very undecided about picking up this series but the clincher was knowing that Erika Toda appears in the last 2 episodes of Season 2. So, loyal fool that i am, i started watching the whole drama from the beginning and suddenly i couldn't stop. Back that up with a cast of up and coming teen stars (Inoue Mao as Makino Tsukushi, Matsumoto Jun as Doumyouji Tsukasa, Oguri Shun as Hanazawa Rui, Matsuda Shota as Nishikado Soujiroh, Abe Tsuyoshi as Mimasaka Akira) and this is one of the better romance comedies i've seen this year.
Rich Kid/Poor Girl.
And of course one big advantage about watching HYD first is that i got used to Matsuda Shota's face, so i didn't have prejudices when i watched the first episode of Liar Game, which was much better than i dared hope for Erika's first lead role. She plays Kanzaki Nao, a much too honest and gullible girl (she went to the police to return a 100yen coin that she found on the ground; she fell for the same prank 42 times ..). Somehow or rather she get tangles up with the Liar Game(hosted by none other than Jigsaw(SAW) himself) and ends up getting swindled of 100million yen. Desperate, she enlists the help of swindler Akiyama Shinichi who is just released from prison and agrees to help her for half the share of the prize money (50million yen). Eagerly looking forward to Ep 2 airing next Saturday.
Toda Erika
Matsuda Shota
A very flustered Nao.
How did Jigsaw escape into this show?